"virtual theft" leads to arrest ...

BBC
Last Updated: Wednesday, 14 November 2007, 14:37 GMT


'Virtual theft' leads to arrest
A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.
The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.

The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.

A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said: "The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by creating fake Habbo websites.

"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a while.

interesting to say the least..ive never been near that habbo stuff but i wonder who actually took the time and money to track down and enforce on these scammers. and why in gawds name would ya need that much virtual furniture anyway? :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lunatic_Calm interesting to say the least..ive never been near that habbo stuff but i wonder who actually took the time and money to track down and enforce on these scammers. and why in gawds name would ya need that much virtual furniture anyway? :P

Some people are just greedy :D

And copyrights are getting tighter. Even most online content is now deemed as 'Intellectual Property'. For example anything you create in Second Life you automatically get the copyrights for, so you can sell it to others online for Linden dollars or whatever they're called.

Online activities are getting way too serious :)